The King of Fighters XIII/Systems/Attacking: Throws Throwteching

Throws

Throws are universally performed by holding or + or while close to an opponent. One cannot be thrown during blockstun or during the startup or landing recovery of a jump or hop.

• Throws universally deal around 100 damage (10%) and result in a hard or soft knockdown. The available setups after each throw vary per character due to spacing and frame advantage.
• A throw initiated with the button will result in the opponent being thrown in front of the throwing player. A throw started with tosses the opponent backwards.
• Upon pressing or , a throw attempt is initiated on the same frame. If a throw cannot be performed, a corresponding normal move will come out instead.
• Throws cannot be performed while running.

Strategy Corner

While it is not normally possible to perform a while running, there is a way around this restriction. Simply initiate a run () and continue to hold until close to the opponent. Once in range, hold and input a Heavy button ( + or ). If the opponent was in close proximity while in a grabable state, a will be initiated.

• In KOF XIII, the distance between two characters required in order to perform a grab from a run has increased compared to previous games, making the technique very effective.

Throw Teching

Throw Techs are universally performed by holding or + or during a 10-16 frame window after being initially thrown. Upon a successful tech, no damage is dealt, and both players become spaced away at a neutral situation.

• Either button can be pressed to break a throw in KOF XIII. KOF 2002 UM requires a pianoing method over both Heavy buttons, but this is not necessary to perform in XIII.

Throw Invulnerability

A player cannot be thrown for 11 frames after waking up from a hard knockdown, 6 frames after landing from an air reset, and a variable amount of frames (5 frames at least) after recovering from blockstun (see blockstun/hitstun throw recovery). This, in addition to Alternate Guarding, makes tick throws far less effective than in other fighting games, since the defending player can press a button with little fear of being thrown. However, an attacking player can still use frame traps to punish an opponent for pressing buttons.

• After teching a soft knockdown (Press + before landing on the ground), the rising player is immediately susceptible to throws on their first standing frame (as in Street Fighter IV).
• Certain command normals and specials put the player in an airborne state and thus can avoid all manners of ground grabs.
• Because backdashes are considered airborne, they can be used to avoid ground grabs.
• The grounded startup and recovery periods of a hop or jump are completely throw-invulnerable. As a result, even upon landing from an aerial approach (from a empty hop or jump-in), a player can always hop again to escape a command grab attempt.
• It's possible to forfeit the initial grab invulnerability period by performing a recovery roll.

Specific throw invulnerability values

Unlike older King of Fighters games, the throw invulnerability after blockstun and hitstun is not universally 9 frames, but rather depends on three factors. First, it depends on the type attack, whether it is a jumping light attack, grounded light attack, or a heavy attack. Secondly, it depends on the character, characters cause a specific amount of throw invulnerability, therefore some characters are better at tickthrowing than other. Thirdly it depends on whether the opponent coming out of blockstun or hitstun presses a button. Pressing a button will shorten the amount of throw invulnerability to a set minimum of frames.

The table presented below is taken from the Arcadia magazine, and only has data for the arcade version. It is quite safe to assume little changed in the console version, but the new characters are not yet included. In the future this data will have to be tested for console version.

	j.A/B		A/B, j/st.CD		C/D
Character	Min	Max	Min	Max	Min	Max
Ash	5	12	9	12	7	12
Elisabeth	5	8	9	9	9	9
Duo Lon	9	9	9	9	9	9
Shen	5	11	9	11	7	11
Kyo	5	16	9	16	7	16
Benimaru	5	12	9	12	7	12
Daimon	5	12	9	12	7	12
Iori	5	15	9	15	7	15
Mature	5	8	9	9	7	8
Vice	5	7	9	9	7	7
Terry	5	12	9	12	7	12
Andy	5	12	9	12	7	12
Joe	5	12	9	12	7	12
Kim	5	10	9	10	7	10
Hwa	5	13	9	13	7	13
Raiden	5	10	9	10	7	10
Athena	5	16	9	16	7	16
Kensou	5	13	9	13	7	13
Chin	5	13	9	13	7	13
Ryo	5	10	9	10	7	10
Robert	5	9	9	9	7	9
Takuma	5	11	9	11	7	11
Ralf	5	9	9	9	7	9
Clark	5	9	9	9	7	9
Leona	5	13	9	13	7	13
Mai	5	12	9	12	7	12
Yuri	5	5	9	9	7	7
King	5	9	9	9	7	9
K'	5	12	9	12	7	12
Kula	5	9	9	9	7	9
Maxima	5	9	9	9	7	9

Tick Throws

• A tick throw attempt must wait for a certain amount of time after blockstun for any throw invulnerability to wear off; this can make landing an grabs difficult without having a setup since the opponent has a 8-9 frame window to attack, hop, or alternate guard. Delayed grabs like Daimon's ( + ) come out slowly and are invulnerable so they work much better for tick throwing though they still lose to alternate guarding. Because of this long delay, tick throws are best saved for grappler characters or when used sparsely after conditioning the opponent to block.
• Ticking into a normal throw isn't a powerful tactic on its own, but it has its values and setups despite the lengthy tech and invulnerability periods. Recall that you must be standing to throw/tech: players can be set up to crouch which increases their chance of being thrown in certain instances.
  • After hopping in with a high-hitting attack, most players will begin to block low to avoid a low-hitting cr.B which can turn into a combo. This practice leaves the defending player more throw-susceptible and works as a subtle psychological break.
    • This situation also arises after blocking an attack that's negative but not quite fully throw-punishable or rather the throw punish window is tight. The defending player could go for a throw which can always be teched, but attempting to tech requires the other player to standblock, so the defending player could mix in a low attack that doesn't really punish the negative move though it could punish the throw tech attempt. While the previously attacking player may not be subject to a guaranteed punish they're placed in a bad situation which could cause them to opt for being thrown.
  • More traditional tick throws can work, but only after heavily conditioning the opponent to block and be cautious. This means the player trying to land a tick throw may need to land multiple frametraps and break through the opponent's alternate guard first to scare the opponent and only then try a tick throw. The opponent will more or less have to be somehow dazed or thrown off balance for a normal tick throw to work.
• Grapplers can alternate between throwing with their command grabs and normal grabs to shut down jump and backdash escape methods, an Option Select detailed below:

Empty Hopping into a Throw

• Most characters can typically hop at an opponent without doing an attack, land, and immediately either do a low attack or throw the opponent. Landing a low Crouching usually converts to a combo for most characters but loses to the Throw Tech Option Select mentioned below. A powerful tool for grapplers then is to do an 'empty' hop at the opponent and immediately land and use an instant grab. It can be tough for the defending player to react to the incoming player not attacking from a hop and is best dealt with by anti-airing or neutral hopping to punish the grab's whiff animation.
• At times, a grappler may want a safer option that isn't so heavily punishable. One solution is to do an empty hop but land and use a normal throw to either grab a blocking opponent who forgets to tech, tech a throw the opponent may have used by an Option Select, or automatically attack with a Heavy normal if the opponent had jumped. This method punishes both jump out and roll out escape methods, though the opponent can negate the damage with a tech. The real advantage of this setup is the safety, especially if also combined with a empty safe-jump so that the player can also block a reversal attempt before doing a throw. Non-grapplers can also use this setup as a safe method of seeing how the opponent will react on wakeup or when being pressured.
• Deciding to throw with or is important with this setup. For starters, a throw will keep the opponent in front of the player which can potentially keep the opponent cornered. A throw will throw the opponent behind the player, which can forfeit the corner advantage. So why possibly favor the throw? It comes down to analyzing each character's Close and normals. Daimon's Standing is a powerful anti-air that will beat out all jump attempts cleanly, unlike his Close , so it can better cover all of the opponent's options. Some characters, like Iori, have a really powerful anti-air Close that allow this Option-Select to keep the opponent cornered while covering all bases. For other characters, either normal may not anti-air well, so pick a throw based on spacing preference; the choice is yours and yours alone.
• Since the hopping player isn't giving the defender any attack to block, empty hopping into a command grab is a solid choice for negating alternate guard.

Throw Tech Option Select

Correctly blocking offensive pressure from an incoming opponent's hop can be difficult, especially if the opponent begins to perform empty hops into throws or low hit-confirms. However, if a defending player holds to block and times a / input correctly, multiple defensive options occur which will cover many of the opponents options in what is known as an 'Option-Select':

• If the input is timed late, then an opponent attacking with a jumping normal from a hop will be blocked before the defending player's normal is whiffed.
• If the offensive opponent had performed an empty hop in order to throw the defender, the throw attempt will be teched.
• If the offensive player had gone for a low attack from an empty hop, the buffered Throw Tech input will throw the offensive player out of the startup of a low attack.

While the Throw Tech Option Select is a powerful tool, it will always lose to an instant command grab done from an empty hop.

However, as a player is waking up and facing a potential meaty jumping attack from a hop, this defensive option select will not work due to the lack of time to block and due to the tight ambiguity of whether an opponent's hop attack will be active as the defender wakes up, or if the meaty attack will be a low instead.